244 SECOND REPORT OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



8. PODURA NiviCOLA. " The Snow-fiea."' 



Black or blue-black ; legs and tail dull brown. 



Length 0.08. 



Body black, covered with a glaucous blue-black powder but slightly ad- 

 herent, and sparingly clothed with minute hairs ; form cylindrical, some- 

 what broader toward the tail. Anten7ioe short and thick, longer than the 

 head. Legs above blackish, beneath dull brown and much paler than the 

 body. Tail oi the same color with the venter, shortish, glabrous on its 

 inner or anterior surface, with minute hairs on the opposite side ; its fork 

 brownish. 



Though found in the same situations as the European P. nivalis, ours is 

 a much darker colored species. Say's P.bicolor is a larger insect than the 

 one under consideration, and differs also in size and in the color of the tail 

 or spring. From the habits of the present species, we should infer that it 

 might be abundant in all the snow-clad regions of the northern parts of 

 this continent ; it may, therefore, prove to be identical with the P. humicola 

 of Otho Fabricius (Fauna Groenlandica), of which we are unable to refer 

 to any but short and unsatisfactory descriptions, which do not coincide 

 well with our insect. 



This is an abundant species in our forests in the winter and fore part of 

 spring. At any time in the winter, whenever a few days of mild weather 

 occur, the surface of the snow, often, over whole acres of woodland, may 

 be found sprinkled more or less thickly with these minute fleas, looking 

 at first sight, as though gunpowder had been there scattered. Hollows 

 and holes in the snow, out of which the insects are unable to throw them- 

 selves readily, are often black with the multitudes which here become im- 

 prisoned. The line meal-like powder with which their bodies are coated, 

 enables them to float buoyantly upon the surface of water, without 

 becoming wet. When the snow is melting so as to produce small rivulets 

 coursing along the tracks of the lumberman's sleigh, these snow-fleas 

 are often observed, floating passively in its current, in such numbers as 

 to form continuous strings ; whilst the eddies and still pools gather them 

 in such myriads as to wholly hide the element beneath them. 



